


Tribute-Devotion

by Taylor Dancinghands (tdancinghands)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Inspired by Real Events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-04
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tdancinghands/pseuds/Taylor%20Dancinghands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Prague, an era comes to an end, and countless light-years distant, in the Pegasus Galaxy, one man feels the ripples... and finds he has created some himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tribute-Devotion

** Tribute-Devotion **

Radek was usually at the Monday morning science briefing before he was, so when Rodney came up to the conference room a couple of minutes before the briefing was scheduled to start, he glanced over a Woolsey, to see if he knew why Rodney's right hand man and chief engineer was not present.

"Dr Zelenka had some news from home this morning," Woolsey said. "I told him he could take the morning off."

"What, some family trouble?" Rodney asked. He knew that Radek only had a sister and a nephew for family, and knowing that much, Rodney figured he was entitled to know if anything had happened to them.

"Not precisely," said Woolsey, in that weaselly bureaucratic way he had that let Rodney know that he wasn't going to learn any more from him. So, Rodney was stuck dealing with all of Radek's business during the meeting, as well as his own and, immediately at its conclusion, went off to find the man. He was not feeling terribly charitably inclined about it, either. His displeasure was not in the least mollified when he did not find Radek at his usual work station, nor in the engineering labs, but when one of the junior engineers suggested that he might have seen Zelenka heading out toward the East pier, Rodney knew where he would find the man. 

When Atlantis had finally returned to the Pegasus Galaxy -with the unspoken understanding that her days of flying across galaxies to save Earth's bacon were over and done- those who'd stayed with her through thick and thin had expressed a strong desire to put down roots, both literally and figuratively.

Woolsey had rather skillfully negotiated a Pegasus trade alliance, of which Atlantis was an important part, and there'd even been a couple of Earther/Pegasus native weddings over the past couple of years. On the city, larger, more permanent style quarters had been opened up and made available for upper level staff, and more public and recreational areas had been set up near the residential quarters. There was now a pool and tennis courts on the West pier, and on the East pier Parrish had set up a 'community gardens' area, with plots for individuals who wanted to grow flowers or vegetables in their spare time. Atlantis had become a place where people had spare time, these days, and even Rodney thought that was a big improvement over the old days.

Radek had been one of the first people to snap up one of the garden plots, which had surprised Rodney a little at the time. It was a side of Radek he'd never guessed at, but now he was used to the man showing up in the lab with occasional excesses of tomatoes or bunches of spinach, and he'd even gotten used to how quickly Radek's gardening time had become all but sacrosanct. Rodney had come to understand that Radek did not garden merely for vegetables, but for something less tangible, yet far more important.

Zelenka's plot was at the end of the row of plots, and was always one of the more beautifully kept -only the botanists did better, and sometimes Radek out-did even them. He grew both vegetable and flowers, but never flowers for cutting. There was nearly always something in bloom in Radek's garden plot, and he'd even installed a small bench in one corner, facing out across the plot toward the sea. That was where Rodney spotted Radek now, as he'd expected, but something about the man's posture or his demeanor caused Rodney to pause before he stormed over to give the man a piece of his mind.

Radek Zelenka's head was bowed as he sat on the small garden bench, his hands clasped between his knees, and when he drew closer Rodney realized that he wasn't wearing his glasses. This... seemed serious, though what sort of serious Rodney had no idea. Suddenly this had become one of those situations which generally calls for sensitivities of the sort that Rodney didn't really manage very well. He approached to the edge of the plot -delineated by fencing that was mainly decorative, or existed solely for the purpose of supporting flowering pea vines- and gave a tentative cough.

Radek glanced up at the sound and Rodney reflected that, in the handful of times he had seen Zelenka sans spectacles, he had seemed either markedly younger or markedly older. Today he looked older.

"Rodney," he said, voice soft, but not roughened from crying (thank God). "I am sorry I was not a briefing this morning... but, I needed a little time."

"What... what's happened?" Rodney asked, trying for 'caring' rather than just nosey.

"Ah... there was some news from Earth... from Prague, this morning," he said. "Vaclav Havel has died."

For several agonizing seconds Rodney's brain scrambled to recall who this, undoubtedly very important, person was, and then, thankfully, hit on it a moment later. "Havel..." he said at least. "He was that, ah, Velvet Revolution guy?"

"Yes," Radek's smile was pained, but forgiving. "'The Velvet Revolution Guy'. He was also a playwright, and director, and but for him, for his sacrifices, I would not be here today."

Drawing closer, Rodney now saw that, on a flat, raised stone in the center of the garden, Radek had set a small candle in a red glass container. A framed photo of the man Rodney assumed must be the late dignitary sat beside it.

"On Wenceslas Square, in Prague" Radek said quietly, "and on Národní Třída and at the gates of the Prague Castle, people are leaving candles, flowers, photos. Tribute from a grateful nation. I would do the same if I were there, but I am here because of him, and so I make my tribute here."

"Huh," said Rodney thoughtfully.

"In 1990, one year after our revolution, I was required to enter mandatory term of military service," Radek said now, not quite addressing Rodney directly, in spite of the fact that he was the only one there. "If Communists had still been in power, I would almost certainly have been tracked into military career, and worked my whole life in service to state, either in weapons design, or nuclear power generation. I would never have been free to join Stargate Program, never met you, never come here... where I learned that even dreams may be surpassed by reality."

Radek looked back at the photo and the candle, then directly at Rodney. "I am only one of many thousands who owe this man my freedom. There are no words in any language for my gratitude and devotion... and so we light candles, to say what our words cannot."

"Makes sense," Rodney said, and meant it. Not the part about lighting candles so much as understanding how unlikely chains of events can lead to terribly important things. If he stopped and thought about how different things would have been for Atlantis, and for him, and even for Earth, without Radek Zelenka... well, it was never anything good.

Radek returned to work that afternoon and nothing more was said about it, but Rodney found the question continuing to prey on his mind nonetheless. He knew, of course, that it had taken more than the work of a single man to bring about the liberation of Czechoslovakia from their totalitarian communist government, but that one man could be pivotal just the same -just as he himself was... and just as Radek Zelenka was in his own way as well.

Maybe that was why Rodney found himself filching a votive candle from Atlantis' new (-ish) interdenominational chapel late that night, on his way home from the labs. It was, more or less, the reason why, he told himself, he left for work the next morning ten minutes earlier than usual -candle and a lighter in his pocket- in order to make the detour to Radek's garden plot and add his own tribute to Radek's. Knowing what he did about how things generally went on Atlantis, Rodney should not have been surprised to find that he was not the only one to have this idea.

"Hey," Sheppard and Ronon both gave him a cursory greeting as they passed each other, Rodney entering the garden plot area, the other two just leaving. 

"Hey," Rodney said back, figuring that the two of them must have included the garden area on their daily run... though, Rodney reflected, they usually did that earlier. Then he saw Zelenka's garden plot.

Candles completely covered the flat stone in the center, and spilled out to sit among the rose and snowberry bushes that grew near by. They lined the stone edge of the garden bed and the flagstone foot path that ran along side the base. People had added their own pictures of Havel as well, one of him standing with someone Rodney recognised as Frank Zappa, and another, clearly produced recently on someone's color printer, of Havel sitting in a wheelchair with the Dalai Lama.

The dozens of candles, votives and tea-lights gleamed and danced in the light ocean breeze, and Rodney stood for a long moment, just taking it all in. Tribute, he thought, and devotion, and then stooped to light his own and set it among them. He was just straightening back up when he heard a faint but surprised exclamation.

"Cože?" Radek said from just behind him, eyes wide behind his glasses.

"Guess I wasn't the only one to have this idea," Rodney said with a shrug, thinking about the hours Radek had spent at his side, building Genii nuclear weapons, wracking his brains to solve Atlantis' various crises, remembering his contributions to Rodney's own rescue from a downed jumper at the bottom of the sea, and of how his implementing the wormhole drive on Atlantis had not only saved Rodney and his team, but quite possibly Earth as well.

"If you're here because of Vaclav Havel," Rodney continued as Radek goggled slightly, "well, then it could be said that I'm here, along with quite a few other people, because of you. So... I guess a lot of us owe the man... something. Tribute at least."

"At least," Radek said quietly, and then, "Thank you, Rodney."

"You're welcome," Rodney said, resting his hand on Radek's shoulder. "Now let's go do some kick-ass science and make him proud."

**_-Konec-_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the spirit of playwright and president Vaclav Havel and poet and dissident Ivan Martin Jirous, who also left us this year. These two men followed their respective muses to a higher calling than theater and music, and made great sacrifices for all our sakes.
> 
> This story is my tribute to them, and the mark of my devotion.
> 
> T.D.


End file.
